2 US troops killed, 1 missing after Iran attacks base in Jordan
The U.S. military on Saturday announced its first troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, with two killed and another missing in an attack on a base in Jordan after days of intensifying exchanges of fire.
Friday’s drone and missile attack sent four other service members to hospitals, the military said. The dead were not identified. Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Minutes before the announcement, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic.
The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.” An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
The battle has focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The widening strikes now threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.
The previous recorded death of a U.S. service member was that of a helicopter pilot who crashed in the Arabian Sea earlier this month. Early in the war, an Iranian drone strike on a command center in Kuwait killed six soldiers. One soldier died after an attack on a base in Saudi Arabia. Six were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.
On Saturday, the most significant damage from Iranian strikes occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.
Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.
The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.
The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”-AP
Follow our WhatsApp Channel now! https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAjG7g3gvWajUAEX12Q
